A Guide to the 23 Edicts for the Perplexed

We at The American Catholic, among our many other missions, aim to translate Governmentese into English with color commentary. Herewith is an example of our service in regard to President Obama’s 23 executive orders on gun control, better termed edicts:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

Do what the agencies have been supposed to be doing all along.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

The maze of laws and regulations belched out by Congress and the Executive branch each year, and which I have overwhelmingly supported, have a deleterious impact on background checks, as they do with accomplishing anything in these United States. Shazam!
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

Fall in line States or we will deprive you of Federal money. Federalism, what’s that?
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

He can start with the Fast and Furious gunrunning to Mexican drug dealers he implemented.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

In other words grant them a power they already have in every state.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

File 13 awaits for those letters.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

Put the NRA in charge of it. They have been running gun safety courses since the 19th century.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

A review in search of a problem. Guns are very safe, ill-trained or careless owners, not so much.
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

Something routinely done in virtually every jurisdiction in these United States.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

Something else for local cops to ignore. The paper churned out by the Feds to local law enforcement would take up a large part of their time if they actually paid attention to most of it, which they don’t.
11. Nominate an ATF director.

Having a permanent director as opposed to the interim director who has served since 2011 and who Obama has nominated will make all the difference in the world for that troubled agency.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

Any “first responders” who already do not have plans to deal with a shooter should be fired on the spot. More useless training to provide a dog and pony show for the public.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

This ranks with saying we are going to try really, really hard to do the job that we should have been doing all along.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

Moral and law enforcement problems transformed into a medical problem.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies

We have had these devices called safeties and locked gun cabinets for a very long time Mr. Attorney General, so save yourself the work.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

Because we always look for advice on home defense from doctors or should they now be called federal snitches?
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

Something they should know already, since most of them are covered by state mandatory reporting laws.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

Yeah, that is the same proposal that liberals went berserk over when the head of the NRA made it last year. One-third of schools already have armed guards and/or cops in them.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

Maybe not advertising that they are gun free zones, so that every loon knows they will be a happy hunting ground?
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

We will overlook the fact that most mass shooters have received mental health care that did not prevent their rampages.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

In the words of Rahm Emanuel, never let a crisis go to waste.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

Did Rahm write some of these 23 points?
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

Because they have been such raging successes at running Obamacare and the Department of Education that they have plenty of time to talk about better living through more head shrinking.

Summary of the 23 Edicts I will leave to the Bard, even if he is a bit harsh: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.